By Ryan Long
Berwick are ready and waiting to kick start their second official season in the Eastern Football Netball League after a successful debut year in 2021.
The Wickers joined the league from the Outer East competition in 2021, having won three premierships since 2015 in the now defunct South East Football Netball League.
In a new league, senior Coach Clint Evans oversaw a side that finished last year with a record of 3-6 before the season ended prematurely.
Although they didn’t have a chance to play out the full fixture and compete against everyone, the Wickers have at least been able to dip their toe into the water and get an idea of what their opposition teams are like before a full season in 2022.
Evans has been pleased with the effort and game style they were able to bring in 2021 without much knowledge of their opponents and a fair bit of pressure upon their shoulders.
“I thought we went pretty well, probably besides two or three games where we got belted a little bit but we were still in games for long periods of time,” Evans said.
“I thought we did pretty well against good sides, the sides that were around us thought we struggled with.”
The difference in the competition was a noticeable for Berwick, Evans noting the immense difference between the EFNL to their former league regarding the level of competition, with the Berwick mentor keen to point out that there were no easy games in the top division.
“The big thing for us is getting ourselves up preparing wise, week in week out,”
“We used to only play three or four sides that we had to get ourselves up for, whereas here, every week you had to make sure you were ready to go,”
“If you’re not, you’re going to get found out, which we discovered a few times and probably other sides found that out with us as well.”
Berwick was decimated with injuries throughout the season, partly due to the physical toll of weekly matches after having no footy in the previous 18 months.
Over this year’s off-season, Berwick has decided to focus on the youth at the club rather than looking too much at recruiting. The club has lost a couple of their experienced star players such as Madison Andrews and Luke Sheppard, which will allow the younger players below them an opportunity to step up.
“A lot of the older boys haven’t been able to travel for the last couple of years, now that they can, I think they’ve just found that they want to do something different than footy which you can understand,”
“We’re lucky enough that we’ve got a lot of young kids coming through.”
One big move that the club did make in the off-season was bringing in Ryan Bromley who will help fill the shoes of their departed experienced players.
“He’s an ex-Beaconsfield player, he’s a really good left footer across halfback,”
“He’s come across which is good, he’s only 25 which is perfect for us, especially after losing a couple down back,”
“Besides that, we’ll be very similar but we’ll be very young as well.”
There isn’t an overall expectation of finals just yet, with the Wickers more focused on getting more senior games into their younger list and hopefully improving last season’s results.
“I think it’s more about building on from last year, there’s no ceiling at the moment,”
“We played nine games last year, won three, but beat Balwyn and Norwood who were in the four so we know we can compete,”
“But our goal is to try and be more consistent week in, week out.
“Injuries really hurt us last year, so making sure the boys are more prepared and ready to go,”
“If we can keep our guys on the park, we’ll stretch sides.”